


As the Smoke Rises Pt Three

by PhoenixDragon



Series: As the Smoke Rises [3]
Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Angst, Dark, Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2006-02-05
Updated: 2006-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-11 23:11:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixDragon/pseuds/PhoenixDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His eyes trailed the columns of ashy death as it greeted the sun, the taste of it thick and oily in the back of his throat. A testament to his new life. A bringer of his walking death. He would continue on, blood pulsing through his veins, the howl of his inner abyss a constant mantra to his bleeding ears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As the Smoke Rises Pt Three

  
_Because, Angel knew…_

They were locked in the old waltz, but with a different tune –

It was either one, or the other, now.

 **They couldn't both just walk away from this.**

  
There it was.

The gust of chilled, yet warming breath across the back of his neck – and for a moment, _just a moment_ – he wondered who it was.

Angel, Angelus –

Or the _other_. The _in-between_.

He opened his eyes briefly, gaze flickering to the inferno that was Wolfram & Hart, Los Angeles Branch, and breathed with the Thing behind him, insides quivering in dark anticipation.

Would it hurt, to die this way?

Or would he just sink into oblivion?

It was an old thought – as old as their dance. One that he harbored in the depths of the sleepless night, remembering, remembering…

  
 _Cool hands gliding against overly-sensitized, heated flesh._

The soft press of fingers – a plea, as well as a command – that he submit, that he pretend this was more than it was. And with a small groan, or hiss of air between his teeth – but, more often with silence – he would comply, waiting, waiting as those cold lips would press to the flesh of his throat.

Then the probing of fingers, slick with salvia or oil, pushing into him, forcing him open.

The dreams of Angel taking his life as he took his body, owning him as he killed him –

It would be so much faster than this – this slow agony of being fucked, being exposed like this, to one that he could never have.

So very many, many times.

 _Those cool lips suckling at his neck, marking him forever, as that hot column of flesh would pushing against, into,_ through _him._

The slow rhythm that would build - the lips becoming teeth, worrying at his throat, as Angel moaned his lust into his ear, his hair – nonsensical murmurs, clawing, gripping fingers bruising his hips, dragging him up and onto that source of such pain and pleasure –

Shaking, biting his hand to stifle the cries as he came, cheeks red with shame and embarrassment – not wanting the others to hear.

The others who were usually so close, they would _hear – if he chose to let it out, if he chose to voice his disdain - his horror and dark longing. They would hear –_

And then, they would know.

 _Know that he was nothing more than a plaything for one of the darkest creatures to walk among them – a vampire with a soul._

If he could die in Angel's arms – at the height of this angry pleasure, they would never know – and he would never have to face them again, knowing that he was never good enough, strong _enough._

That he was never enough…

  
" I don't want to kill you, Wes..."

Softly. Spoken close enough to make him bleed, without even a touch.

Then what _did_ he want?

What he had wanted was never satisfying, never what he _needed_.

But all that _Wesley_ needed.

All that he _wanted_ – if only there was more to it.

 _And now it was all gone_ …

  
His eyes took in the ruins of Wolfram & Hart, mildly surprised that he had missed the rubble collapsing in on itself.

But, then – you are bound to missing something like that, if you are slowly collapsing in on _yourself_ – such a thing takes priority over the Apocalypse happening around you.

" What… What – "

" The Senior Partners." Angel said quietly.

Yes. It was Angel. He knew that now – which made all of this so much worse.

It was truly over…

" _Why_ …" He said through numbed lips. More of a statement than a question.

Angel was right – he knew why.

 _He had always known_.

He shivered again as Angel's fingers danced along his spine, their firm-softness a blur of icy heat through his clothes, his voice a sing-song of regret and black joy against the shell of his ear.

" They are done here, Wesley. _We_ are done. It's all – "

" Over…" Wesley sighed. His throat constricted in remote grief and pain.

Yes. Over.

" And us." Once again, not a question. Well… One that could not be answered – even if there _was_ an answer.

" Oh, Wesley…" Like flesh gliding over broken glass – jagged, bleeding. " _Please_ …"

The sigh of sound blended and sang through the pop and crash of destruction. It rose with the smoke and settled against his shoulders like a cloak of bleak certainty.

" Don't make me do this. Don't make us _become_ this…"

" I'm not." He replied simply – helplessly. " I – "

" _Don't. Wes…_ "

He nodded, trying to swallow past the hatred and overwhelming surge of love that warred within his chest, his fear and sorrow at what was to be heavier than his heart could allow. He had come so far – done so _much_.

He had risen from the dead – for _him_.

 _All for him_.

And it was a mistake…

For now he was dying again – and only one action would make that death swift and complete.

Then – it would truly be over.

He thought about the past few years – the joys as well as the pain – and found that the pain was more real.

 _It was the truth._

It was inevitable.

His father had warned him.

Time and time again – and he had never listened.

He had to prove him wrong, prove him _unjust_ –

Only to find he was right all along...

At least about one thing –

 _He could never have Angel's heart._

How could you have something – hold and _warm_ something –

 _That would never beat?_

Then to find that he had been betrayed – over and over and over.

 _His_ betrayal was horror – to take Angel's child, only to lose him – was Hell in itself.

But to be _lied_ to, steadily, for over a year – to have that knowledge taken away, only to find it was never really gone –

That was indescribable.

That was _torture_.

  
He closed his eyes once more, body floating along the feel of the destruction that lay just beyond reach.

But, oh so close enough to touch.

Hot, thin tears, like the welling of blood – rolled down his cheeks, cutting furrows of fury and despair into his flesh. So sweet, yet so _biting_...

The vampire sucked in another breath behind him – the void of the now wavering, close to shattering – at the sound of his own pain. False, and yet comforting. He was already gone.

He had moved on – leaving the wreckage known as Wesley in his wake.

He could never love him. _Had_ never loved him. And that knowledge – that _Pain_ – was just a whole new way of dying.

" You never did."

" _Wesley…_ " Hollow and bereft.

" I'm sorry."

" Oh, Wesley… I never meant to hurt you."

So, so very close.

 _But so far away_.

" I know."

 _I know that it was my own fault. To hope for so much, against such odds. To be who I am, falling for what you are. To feel such pain, to feel such despair, to love so much, to hate so deep._

To want what could never, would _never – be mine._

" I know…"

He thought of them all. Fred, Illyria ( _Oh, Fred. How I loved you, too._ ), Gunn, Giles, Buffy, Willow, Xander, Cordelia ( _my savior who could never save me._ ), Lilah.

And Angel…

He thought of them all – _loved_ them all.

  
 _And let them go._

  
The ones who were lost, the ones who were lost _to_ them, the ones they saved, the ones they almost saved. The ones who lived, the ones who died, the ones who walked in-between.

He grieved, loved and hoped for them all.

All the laughter, the joy, the closeness, the pain, the despair, the pleasure, the weariness, the fight against odds that they could not win – the odds that got them all in the end, wherever they were.

He thought of them, as tears suffocated him and clogged his senses – as he listened to the huff and scream of a city that eat itself slowly – as he felt the press of fingers against his spine, his throat – as his name was whispered into the down of hair at the nape of his neck – as his heart tore and thudded in his chest, spreading chill darkness to his bones – as he tasted the salt of bitter regret upon his lips – as his eyes focused and read the blackness behind the lids –

A text of what was to come.

He felt and held it all, his body heavy and light – almost bursting with the total feeling, as he said one last time.

" _I know…_ "

The sun burned through the layer of rolling, writhing black – the smoke a visible live thing, tormenting itself with the air as it dissipated under the glare and harsh shine of the rising sun.

He watched as it rose – empty, lost –

His hope, his life, withering under the soft haze of a new day.

His eyes trailed the columns of ashy death as it greeted the sun, the taste of it thick and oily in the back of his throat. A testament to his new life. A bringer of his walking death. He would continue on, blood pulsing through his veins, the howl of his inner abyss a constant mantra to his bleeding ears.

It was Hell. It was Heaven.

It was a horrible, final joke come to pass.

A thin sweep of dust blew past him – funneling through the shards of brittle, shattered glass that surrounded his sanctuary. A sanctuary it would be no longer. He had lost all such things, now.

 _He had lost everything._

The swirl of dust sifted by him – a yellow-gray dance of long-lost life and hopeless love –

Until it was gone. The sigh of it's passing an eternity, that was over far too soon.

" I love you." He whispered, the hollow echo of his voice a crime and a punishment, the dawn a blasphemy of itself.

" I love you. _And I know…_ "

And Wesley Wyndham-Pryce turned away from the destruction of what was, to face the rest of his future –

 **_Alone._ **

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as always, to my friends at the slashthedrabble community! They got me into this, and seeing as how they keep encouraging me, I don't see them getting me out of it! LOL! This is all your fault guys – with some blame going to my mother and husband, who pushed me to write in the first place – damn them!!  
> Disclaimer: Nope. Don't own 'em – and I can't say I'd treat them any better if I did! Or – to put it bluntly – I may have to return the security deposit on these guys! Cannot guarantee their condition upon release!


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